"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o'er the erring ones, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save." Gordon was never allowed to carry on any work for any great length of time, and the six years at Gravesend passed very quickly. In 1871 he was appointed British representative on the European Commission to superintend the improvement of the mouth of the Danube, so that it might be made more navigable for ships. He was engaged in this work for two years, with his headquarters at Galatz; and the eminent war correspondent, Archibald Forbes, says that he "found his memory still green there in the early years of the Russo-Turkish war, fourteen years after he had exchanged the mosquitoes of the Lower Danube for the not less venomous insects of the Upper Nile." Apart from the testimony of Archibald Forbes, we may be quite sure that he did some good work at Galatz, for it would be difficult to imagine him doing nothing but the ordinary routine of official duties. He always discovered an opening of some sort by which he could help his fellow-creatures, and his active mind and sympathetic nature were, in the words of Jean Ingelow, always asking the question of those with whom he came in contact-- "Are there no briers across thy pathway thrust? Are there no thorns that compass it about? Nor any stones that thou wilt deign to trust My hand to gather out?" The time had now come when he was to be called to a new form of work, one to which he was to give the best years of his life, and for which ultimately he was to sacrifice life itself. In the Crimea and in China, he had shown what he could do as a soldier; at Gravesend he had set a noble example to the world of what a Christian philanthropist might do in his spare hours; and now he was to be called to wage war with the horrors of slavery. We had him in our midst for six years, and we found no work for him worthy of his abilities; but while we overlooked his merits, other nations were not so blind. Just as later on the King of the Belgians was anxious to secure his services which we were allowing to remain idle, so now Nubar Pasha, the far-sighted minister of Ismail Khan, Khedive of Egypt, persuaded him to enter the Egyptian service, and go to Africa as Governor of the Equatorial Provinces. But before we follow him into the Soudan, it may be well to dwell for a little on the distinctly religious aspect of his life. CHAPTER VIII SIMPLE FAITH[4]